


Pandora

by lightningwaltz



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom
Genre: Gen, canon equivalent violence, multiple scenarios, serious spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:04:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Yes, Clover is the wrench in my plans, a reliable force of chaos in a neatly ordered scheme.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandora

**Author's Note:**

> When I played 999 I was really interested in how Junpei's treatment of Clover really effects what ending you get. A lot of characters meet similar-ish fates, but hers changes a fair amount. Also I love Clover in general and wanted to write fic about her. June snuck into the prologue and epilogue because I find her fascinating!

_There are some who will tell you history progresses in an unerring line. I wish it could be that easy._

_For all these years I have focused my attentions on a brief stretch of time in the future. Less than a day in reality, but it has become my world. There are events that must happen because I still exist. I still live and breathe and feel the heat of the incinerator in my nightmares. It has taken this grace period to orchestrate events to the smallest detail. Events flow out and change, like a multitude of tributaries from one chaotic river, and I must be the one to oversee them all._

_There are things I have never seen change. Snake will exit the game early on. Kubota, Nijisaki and Musashidou will meet a gruesome ends; a series of deaths that I do not regret._

_I boasted earlier that I understand the nature of the future. And I do._

_But it still finds way to taunt me._

_It took me ages to realize it, but Junpei’s success hinges on Clover. She’s not always helpful to him- sometimes even actively dangerous- but she balances on the knife’s edge between death and survival. One false move means the difference between an axe to the face or an adrenaline fueled escape through the desert. Ignoring her comes at the cost of my life._

_Yes, Clover is the wrench in my plans, a reliable force of chaos in a neatly ordered scheme._

_And sometimes I’m grateful for it._

*****

Clover really wants to punch that stupid Junpei kid in the face.

Light will be fine. In all honesty he’s always been far more responsible than her, though she’s loath to admit that. Still, she’s been through a Nonary Game without her brother before. It’s not an experience she wishes to repeat.

“He means well, you know.” June is looking at Clover, while Clover examines the ugly as fuck shower curtain. “Junpei, I mean.”

Clover raises an eyebrow, wondering whether those two are dating. It sounded like they hadn’t seen each other in years, though. “If he wants to go stomping around in some stranger’s guts, he can be my guest.”

She feels a twinge of guilt, suddenly remembering June’s reaction to the Ninth Man’s body. She does go a little pale, but then June abruptly giggles. Clover inexplicably finds herself liking her the better for it. “You must be secretly glad to be over here, then.”

“A bit. Just hope I can meet up with the others soon.” Clover pulls the curtain across with a sharp yank. June jumps. “What?”

“Nothing.” She tags along as Clover returns to the bedroom. “I keep thinking about the Titanic, you know?”

Clover rummages through desk drawers. So exciting. “Well, Zero did mention it. I’m not surprised.” Oh. Yes. They were slowly sinking into the ocean. That particular reminder made her slightly sick.

“Oh not that.” June finds a map that was tucked away. “There are all kinds of weird stories about the Titanic. It was such an important thing that it kinda… had a ripple effect on time.”

Then she launches into a rambling monologue of stories about cursed mummies and psychic authors. Evidently June talks up a storm when anxious. It’s interesting stuff though, and Clover listens with an increasingly curious ear.

“So we’re doomed?” She says, giving a nonchalant laugh as the other girl finishes her spiel.

June stops pacing. There’s something overly bright about her eyes, and the knuckles on her clenched hand turn white. Clover takes an inadvertent step back. “Not doomed, so much as… well, maybe we’ll be important to history also.”

The idea does not please Clover. Ever since her first Nonary Game she has been content enough to live in happy obscurity. “Well, anyway let’s focus on escaping okay?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry.”

Their group is clever and they soon find their way out of the fourth door rooms. Clover quickly becomes swamped with fear and then grief for her brother. She will never, ever, ever escape the room drenched in his blood. She can barely spare a thought for Junpei’s earlier transgression or June’s eccentricities. One of her companions must have murdered her brother, and they have the gall to look her in the face and feign innocence. She has never felt rage like this before in her life.

She is proven correct in a later part of the ship when Ace, quite literally, stabs Santa in the back. Clover watches it happen in a daze. The man seems to fall in slow motion, and his scream is unexpectedly high pitched. But then Clover realizes that Santa has been silent, and the choked cries are actually coming from June. Within the span of several heartbeats, Ace turns and attacks Clover. He doesn’t strike her in the heart; no, Ace is not that merciful. The knife plunges into her abdomen; piercing God only knows which vital organs. It was once The Ninth Man’s weapon and it’s destroyed her at last.

“Goddamn it.” The taste of blood floods her mouth. “I hate you.” She’s falling to her knees, holding her hand to her wound. Ace shrugs, as if this is an ordinary occurrence.

“Understandable.”

“No no no,” June is wailing. “No it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.” Pain is blotting out Clover’s mental facilities. In any other world she would have found June’s protestations odd.

And then, as the only uninjured and non-homicidal party left in the room, June turns and runs. Her dark brown hair streams behind her, and Ace is hot on her heels.

Clover falls onto the stairs. “I hate him, I hate him, I hate him”

Santa is trying to say something, but all Clover can hear is a name. “Akane…”

“Who?” Her voice is faint.

The room is turning gray. Fuck it all. Lotus, Seven and Junpei are out there somewhere and she has to stay alive long enough to tell them the truth. She _has_ to tell them the truth about Ace.

_He killed me, he probably killed my brother, let the bastard drown._

She has to stay alive she has to stay alive she has to-

 *****  
It’s all so audacious Clover barely believes it when her plan goes off with a hitch.

Junpei makes a noise of protest when he notices that the back of her shirt is bunched up, but otherwise he does nothing. It’s pretty much the funniest thing Clover has ever witnessed. He was willing to order her around all night. He wouldn’t let her go through door five with her brother, and he practically dragged her from the operating room, mumbling that they had no time to wait around. Now he allows for leniency and that choice will lead to his death. She almost snickers.

As always the group ignores her. Some may be experiencing the all too human revulsion for open mourning. But the others… Oh, she has no doubt in her mind that they murdered Light. There can be no other explanation.

Nor can there be any other outcome.

Seven is the first to go. It’s an arbitrary decision. He’s the first she runs into, and the axe smashes into his skull with ease. Once, twice, three times, in a spray of blood and brains, and then she slices off his hand to get at his watch. The whole process is disgusting, but not as horrendous as her brother’s death.

Santa rushes in to the room, but June throws herself between them.

“Clover, stop! Think! Is this really how you want things to-“

Clover puts a stop to that question quickly enough. June gets an axe aimed at her neck and a clean death. Sort of.

Santa just drops to the ground. He moans into his hands, and it’s the sound of deepest grief. There’s something all too familiar about his reaction.

Clover tilts her head to the side. “You only just met her.”

Santa is silent.

“Right? You’ve only known each other for a few hours?” But June did rush to save him…

“Just fucking finish this. I want out.”

There is a story here, but Clover's curiosity can only extend so far. Seven plus three plus two equals twelve. Digital route: three. Yes, he deserves to die as well.

She honors Santa’s final request.

_See, Zero? I can kill too._

It’s enough to make a girl drunk on power. She all but skips back to the elevator, feeling reinvigorated. Time to deal with Junpei.

 *****  
_Truth had gone, truth had gone, and truth had gone…_

It's obviously a code for something, but what could it be?

Clover needs to track down Junpei. It’s a foolish thing to do, especially when she’s convinced that Zero is close at hand, but still. She trusts him implicitly. It’s all comes down to that freaking bookmark. It’s so akin to something that her brother would do, that she clings to that strand of hope with all her might. She now has something to decipher. And someone to protect. These tasks keep her going when all she wants to do is break down sobbing.

If they break out on their own, they’re going to need all the bracelets they can get. The only readily available one is… keeping company with The Ninth Man’s intestines.

It’s the worst thing she’s ever had to do. Clover pulls her shirt up over her mouth and nose, and fights down powerful waves of nausea.

_It’s gone. Someone’s taken it. Fuck everything._

Wearily, she returns to the first class cabin. Ace is waiting for her. For the last few hours he’s been watching her as if waiting for her to make a false move.

Now she seems to have made one.

When she dies, she crushes the note with the code into her fist. Their world is merciless, but maybe Junpei will find it.

_Ah, now truth is asleep in the darkness of the sinister hand._

*****

Depending on whom you ask, hope was either the only thing left in Pandora’s box, or the worst monster ever unleashed on the world.

When Clover was young and learning her Greek myths for the first time, she had pestered Light about this seeming discrepancy. Either way, hope was a _good_ thing, right?

Now, many years after the fact, she begins to comprehend that sentiment. If Junpei’s memory isn’t faulty, if the corpse behind door number three has two arms made of bone, then her brother could still be alive.

Hope courses through her veins like an illness. Now, more than ever, she needs to concentrate. _Light might not be dead._ It’s a constant refrain running through her mind, and it’s all she can do to keep breathing. Focusing on the tasks at hand seems to be out of the question. She loves and loathes Junpei for it. (But mostly she loves him right now.)

The chapel is where everything unravels. June’s abduction, the noises from the coffin, Junpei knowing to enter a series of numbers into the coffin safe.

_Oh god, oh god, oh god._

She doesn’t even think about it. Clover is a force of nature, throwing herself against Light. Every time she feels him breathe it seems like a miracle.

_He’s alive, alive, alive._

She never really cried in front of the others when she thought her brother had died. But she cries now, not caring who is watching. The ship is sinking, the game isn’t over yet, but now Clover knows everything will turn out okay. She buries her head into Light’s stupid-looking robes, and laughs as he says pompous, comforting things to her.

*****

_I have lived through these scenarios countless times._

_When the day finally comes, will it feel real?_

_I wonder._

_I regret that I will have to leave Junpei after he does so much for me. I regret that Aoi will grow up lonely and bitter. I regret the anguish I will cause Clover. (…I regret that I take pleasure in witnessing her acts of vengeance. I wish I could be so forward.)_

_But at least I can foresee the steps that will lead to their escape. I am Zero, and I owe them their survival._


End file.
